The first thing to strike you – almost literally – when sliding into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes-AMG GT Coupe is the windscreen and just how upright it is.

Slim and wide, it gives a widescreen pillarbox style view of the world ahead – a world entirely dominated by the ever-stretching bonnet of this hot rod sports car. It’s a view measured equally in intoxication and trepidation.

Not a huge amount of room inside

Close the door and you’ll find your fingers pinched between door card and seat side when adjusting some of its settings. It’s not a problem, or even a hazard, but it feels like Mercedes’ ergonomics masters could’ve squeezed a few more millimetres of room for your digits to be entirely comfortable down there. If you own the car you’ll only do it the once anyway, thanks to memory settings.

It’s all down to the super-wide transmission tunnel, which extends itself far back into the cabin and pushes occupants to the outside of the car’s extremities. It adds to the sense of brutal occasion, but doesn’t do much for the driving position since it also offsets the pedals. At least the seat adjusts nice and low into the floor of the car.

Built for right-hand drive markets?

The ergonomics continue to take a hammering when you start to take advantage of the variable exhaust, gearbox modes or even adjust the stereo volume.

Those buttons are all placed on the far side of that transmission tunnel, while the adjustable damper button on the driver’s side of the same requires double-jointed elbows to reach such is its proximity to your left hip. The tiny gearlever seems at odds with the car’s attitude too.

And we still can’t get used to the Comand controller, which isn’t as intuitive to operate as BMW’s i-Drive or Audi’s MMI Touch system, despite the Smartphone-style input commands. The 8.4-inch tablet-style screen splits opinion, though for us we’re quite happy with its looks, position and clarity while the leather clad dash and Alcantara steering wheel of our test model looked great.

Some cheaper-feeling switchgear

It’s just a shame some of the switchgear felt a little lightweight, the airvents in particular lacking the solid tactility that their appearance suggested, and the main instruments didn’t appear a bit more special – and easier to read.

But, for all those issues the Mercedes-AMG GT Coupe still feels like a special place to be, with an ambience (admittedly mostly created by the view along that wide, flat and long bonnet) that rivals struggle to match.